This is one of those who cares? things. If the image speaks to you, then does it matter what it is? I remember in the films days there were those who claimed that anything that wasn't contact printed wasn't are real photograph. Bottom line for me is if the image speaks to me, then I don't care what it's called. If the image doesn't speak to me, then it really doesn't matter.Les

Random thoughts fomr somebody who has not had enough coffee yet this morning.

- I like your work, the image you posted, I think you did a good job;

- no, IMO, it is not a photograph, it is a work of art. At some point - I don't know where - it passed from photograph to a work of art. But what is wrong with that?

- art is art, be it images created with oil paints or photoshop. IMO, this kind of thread mocks the old belief many people used to have that photography could never be art.

- it is important to define the difference between art and photography. I do a lot of historical research, and trying to keep to some kind of standard is very important for accurate recording of history. However the real issues come to play when you have digital photographs of a crime scene. How much "image processing", if any, should police be allowed to do of digital images after the fact? So just saying, it's more than just an figurative arguement in some cases.

Back to my "art is art" comment, one thing I don't think people realize, is while anybody with a computer and credit card can buy and use Photoshop, it still takes real artistic talent to do a good job in photoshop or any image editing software. Even if you are the kind of person who cannot draw with pencil or paint with watercolours, but you are good in photoshop, IMO, you are still an artist. Some people are no good drawing but they are fantastic wood carvers. Is that wood carver not an artist because they cannot draw? I have seen people do amazing work in pottery and ceramics, but cannot draw. Do we say those people are not artists?

so bottom line for me is your talent, not the tools or the medium. if you know how to make a wonderful image in photoshop, and people like your work, more power to you, and I will think of you as an artist.

I think questions about how it was done are less important than questions about why it was done. The truth of a photograph is found in the photographer's intentions about these truths.

Example - If wiggling the camera or something is part of your truth, then it is an essential element in the photograph. When it is seen, the photograph will be an honest representation of the photographer. If wiggling is just a random idea to make the photograph look different, there might not be much truth in that, and the photograph would be incorporating a gimmick for no reason.

Of course I am not referring to commercial photographs, I am referring to art created by photographer. I guess a shorter answer is that the photographer is usually driving toward a "why" and the "how" isn't of much import.

Once your work leaves your studio, it will be judged on what viewers find there. If your intention is not manifested in the body of work itself, it is of little consequence. You will not be present to explain it and defend it. Viewers, and posterity, have the last word on a work's meaning.

Viewers of course make any judgments they so choose. This has no impact on the cause of the art, which belongs only to the artist. I hope no artist is naive to the point of thinking they can control the viewers. That would miss the point. The cause of any piece of art is the artist's intent, not the viewers would be reception. The odds might be very small indeed that any particular viewer see's the artist's intent behind any particular work.

Grab a random photograph off the internet's billions of photographs. Try to determine if that photograph was born of an accidental release of the shutter, or is the product of sweat and pain over some need for expressing something in "just this way."

When work is anonymous, everything is fair game for meaning. When an artist becomes somehow recognized, there is some attempt to first learn the motivation and then educate the viewers. Even if that is simply an "artist profile". e.g. Art History.

Has anyone considered the truth that many, if not most, artists have good days and bad days; days when they have something driving their spirits to arms, and others when they simply have to get out and do it, just to earn a buck?

Can you simply split that into good art and bad art, or are we looking at 'artworks' that are art and others that are just product, devoid of art and redolent only of technical ability, even from the same person's hand?

I note the reference about the great PS operator and how that makes him an artist. Really? I don't think so. It makes him a good technician. A woodworker? Yes, perhaps, depending on what he's producing. If he's making wood sculpture to his own design, then artist; if only a chair, then technician. If following another person's design, then I`d call him technician.

Being capable of doing something well isn't enough. Obviously, anyone who can do something well would probably enjoy the conceit of thinking himself artist, but that's something else: desire, not reality. Thing is, not every photographer wants to or thinks of himself as an artist. Most of my life I thought of myself as a photographer. Period. It's a relativey new concept, other than for those old guys in New Mexico who always imagined themselves stars in another firmament. In my memory, it dates back not much further than the late 60s to early 70s; after that, anyone making a print might consider himself a possible artist, especially if he couldn't print. You have the NY and LA and probably San Fran galleries to thank for the commercial birth and promotion of that idea. Paris isn't without blame, either! Democratization of art? Read making of money.

In the earliest days of photography, 1840s and 1850s, it was thought of as both a revolution in science and a revolution in art. So, some artists create with photography, and some photographers are artists.

The most magnificent thing about photography changing art, is that it eliminates the need for some particular motor skills** in favor of the more important idea of just where to point the camera and why. Making a picture from the intellect is surely as artistic as making one from the mechanics.

**pencil drawing requires a certain purely physical eye-hand coordination that is not found in every person. The camera releases that mundane physical necessity from the requirements of the artist. That which was physical based can become intellectually based.

In the earliest days of photography, 1840s and 1850s, it was thought of as both a revolution in science and a revolution in art. So, some artists create with photography, and some photographers are artists.

The most magnificent thing about photography changing art, is that it eliminates the need for some particular motor skills** in favor of the more important idea of just where to point the camera and why. Making a picture from the intellect is surely as artistic as making one from the mechanics.

**pencil drawing requires a certain purely physical eye-hand coordination that is not found in every person. The camera releases that mundane physical necessity from the requirements of the artist. That which was physical based can become intellectually based.

Right, and that's why not every person (and most certainly not every photgrapher!) is an artist. Taking your justification to its absurdity level, if only to illustrate the point, you could say that anyone with any imagination at all can click onto a website, stick two images together (they wouldn't even have to be his), and then, by dint of having had the thought, he's an artist. Really? You undermine and devalue the artist. Art is a mixture of many real abilities, gifts and senses, not simply the ability of thought. Even a dog can think in its own way.

Right, and that's why not every person (and most certainly not every photgrapher!) is an artist. Taking your justification to its absurdity level, if only to illustrate the point, you could say that anyone with any imagination at all can click onto a website, stick two images together (they wouldn't even have to be his), and then, by dint of having had the thought, he's an artist. Really? You undermine and devalue the artist. Art is a mixture of many real abilities, gifts and senses, not simply the ability of thought. Even a dog can think in its own way.

Rob C

I made no such justification at all. Where did I talk about using the work of others? I think you misunderstood. The revolutionary aspect of photography is that the primary instrument of completion is now the intellect and not the mechanical dexterity of moving a brush around. This is taking an impediment off the list of barriers to creating art. In no way am I undermining artists. Knowing where to point a camera is every bit a "real ability, gift and sense" as any other undertaking of an artist. e.g cutting a stone, painting and so on. The "art" doesn't lie in the virtue of the 'mechanical clockworks' of the endeavor (that's craft), it lies in the intellectual content of the process of conception.

A thought is not synonymous with intellect. Intellect is the faculty of reasoning - it is a process. A thought is simply a mental event in time. Art requires intellect. Sorry, your dog example escapes me completely as to any relevance here.

But here's what might be relevant as a way to further the explanation. Let's suppose a person with very serious disease like ALS. And they have no useful motor movement. But let's assume this is also a brilliant person with a massive intellect and much to "express" about their life, but with no means of doing it. We say they had a great artistic impulse. Now arrange a camera on their electric wheelchair and the whole affair is guided by their eye movement on the computer screen. Is there any reason this person couldn't produce wonderful photographs? Photographs that say even "art critics" would gush over? No, of course there is no reason. And yet, no dexterity was involved or needed. And that is actually what the camera does for anyone who chooses it for expressing their art. NO! It doesn't follow that anyone with a camera is an artist. It just means anyone with a camera COULD be an artist, and they are no longer bound by "hammer and chisel."

It's VERY good digital art and that's perfectly fine since it's a very pleasing image. I like to think of a photo as something I go out and "capture". I may do some cloning and other manipulation to streamline an image to better convey the emotion/experience of "being there" but the basic integrity of the original capture remains in the DNA.

If someone green screens a bikini model in a studio in Cleveland and puts in a background of Hawaii it my look like a photo but it's really digital art. That model was never "there" to be captured. It's an illusion.

But really, so what. If it's good enough, the audience won't know and won't really care. shrug...

It's photo art since no one would mistaken it to be representative of something they would actually see in nature. I think that is fine. What disappoints me is when the "messaging" is not seen and the photo looks real but isn't.